Month: January 2018

I’ve been very nostalgic about my small town for the past few days. Last week was the first time in a while that I stayed late at Main Cup, had my glass of wine under the glow of the hanging lights, chatted with some coworkers (shoutout to DJ WHITE HEAVAAA), and thought I’m actually going to miss this.

Driving through town, knowing all the backroads and the main roads, knowing when to avoid certain intersections because school just let out… I’m going to miss knowing this small town like the back of my hand. There’s something so charming to me about small towns.

West Chester isn’t a small town… it’s a small city. It’s like downtown Frederick, but I’ve never really gotten the hang of DTF either, so it’s intimidating to me to be moving to a place that I have always viewed as cold, jagged, and unwelcoming. Pennsylvania was never in the plans for me. I had always dreamed of moving south. But the man of my dreams is in PA, and I want to be with him. I’m not afraid of that at all – I know he is the love of my life and I want to spend forever with him. It’s just the location.

I heard a song the other day saying “show me the long way around your town,” and it made me sad. I have a lot of pride for my small town. I love the mountains (I have them tattooed on my side. It’s the only tattoo that I have. Yeah, I love them).

I was worried about finding a job that wasn’t an hour-long commute to Philadelphia, and while I have been fortunate enough for an employer to be interested in me in a town only 20 minutes away, I fear they may pass me up because I’m not trying to move up until May.

I want to celebrate my birthday with all my friends without asking them all to travel to PA and crash in whatever tiny space we can provide them. I don’t want to leave my small town any earlier than I have to.

Deep down, a part of me is very scared that I will lose all of these friends and relationships because I move. I know I will have a few relationships that will survive – Heather, Mary, Rosie, Ryan – but I fear for the others. And it’s humbling to know that a place that meant so much to me, that helped form me, gave me the confidence to wholeheartedly be who I am, that I gave almost 6 years of my life to, will forget me. New workers will be hired, ones that will never know me, and eventually my homecomings won’t mean going to see all my friends at Main Cup. Eventually I will be a stranger to those at Main Cup. That has been a hard reality to process.

I know it’s a part of life. It’s something I need to learn – letting go gracefully. I must let go of this part of my life so that I can wholeheartedly start my new one. It’s just a hard transition.

Seeing how hard it was for my sister to move up to West Chester frightens me, I’ll admit. I don’t want to take out any unhappiness with West Chester on Andrew. He’s been incredibly supportive as is. Reassuring me that if I’m genuinely not happy up there, the move isn’t permanent. He’s willing to consider moving to Frederick for my happiness, but I don’t want to hold on to that. I want to put my best foot forward in West Chester and not just be counting down until we can move back to Maryland. He’s been sending me links to mountain trails that aren’t too far away, trying to comfort my outdoorsy side. I really do love this man.

As I said, I want to put my best foot forward. I’m trying to go into this transition with an open heart and open mind. But I’m also fighting the anxiety of moving. Trying not to cling tighter to the people and memories around me for fear of losing them. I’m still trying to navigate it. I hope I am happy.

Black tie and black tights,
A dark bar on a cold night,
Excitement buzzing like champagne bubbles
as we reminisce about how we got here.

I have always been yours,before I even knew you, I was yours.

“Happy New Year!”
the confetti rains as 2017 slips away,
and upstairs we run
to dance where we first knew it was right.

* * *

An amazingly packed weekend full of meeting new people and bonding with others, drinking lots of alcohol and falling even more in love.

Realistically, I had to jump start my car twice in the cold weather, got sick from one of the at least five sick people that surrounded me during the holidays, and I have the cold sore to prove it… But regardless I had a great time.

I hate to brag but it really is an incredible feeling to find your soulmate. Just wanting to spend endless days together, waking up together, going to get breakfast, doing menial errands like going to the gym, doing NOTHING on a Saturday as your rest in preparation for the next day’s New Year’s Eve celebrations, playing video games and watching movies together. Being able to talk about anything and everything, never getting bored of it. And being put to sleep as he rubs your head because you’re feeling sick. There’s no better feeling.

* * *

I was never the girl who dreamed of having babies, and when I did they were nightmares. In eighth grade I had a nightmare that I gave birth to twins. Earlier this year I had a work nightmare that I gave birth and my baby was a literal pork chop on a dinner plate… I’ve never wanted kids.

It wasn’t until I was 21 that I decided I wanted kids. Childbirth had always scared the shit out of me – I just wanted to have the baby belly and then suddenly had the baby with no painful moments in between. But whatever omnipotent force is out there has a funny way of guiding you.

For example, there were a lot of eerily timed happenings in my life before I met Andrew. I met him when I was 19, but neither of us were ready at that point. When we met again at Lauren’s birthday party this past April, we hit it off a bit, but I still wasn’t confident (though apparently at the end of the night I sat in the middle of the limo because that’s where he had been and he sat in the back of the limo because that’s where I had been sitting – more evidence of fate in the works). When we really hit it off and started talking in May, I had just graduated college a week before. Both of my cats died before we started talking, and he’s allergic to cats so now I don’t have to decide whether or not to leave my cat behind to move in with him. There are more examples, but those are just a few.

And lo and behold, last year I decided I want kids, in May I met the man of my dreams and I want to have his babies, and what falls into my lap? A birthing center client. At my new job, one of our clients is a new birthing center opening up in the Frederick area, and I swear to god I have never had this much information or this many resources about childbirth and birthing options. I literally got paid to watch a video about a home birth and I didn’t cringe. It looked beautiful. I was reading about baby milestones for the first year of life and I finally for the first time in my life understand why women always get so excited about newborns.

Working with this client has convinced me that I want to try a birth center or a home birth, should I be healthy enough to have one. Fate has given me the resources to finally not be totally terrified of having children.

As I should currently be working, I should wrap things up. I just wanted to share my newfound newborn love. It’s exciting! Finally feeling like you have your life together for a moment (before it’s all inevitably thrown into chaos as you move to a new state, find a new job, make new friends, etc…. But we’ll get to that later.)